CASCAIS, Portugal — Many of the estimated 2.2 million Brits living “on the Continent” will have no say in the June referendum on leaving the EU, even though they have most to lose.

Some, fearing a No vote will jeopardize their rights to live, work and access health care in their adopted countries under EU freedom of movement rules, are campaigning to change voting rules that disenfranchise them.

“It’s totally undemocratic,” said Tony Smith, a Manchester-born producer of fine wines in Portugal, where there are 40,000 or so Brits, including wine shippers whose families put down roots in the Douro valley centuries ago; pensioners enjoying a sub-tropical retirement on Madeira island; homesick business types stocking up on mint sauce or Cornish pasties from the G.B. Superstore in this Lisbon beach suburb.

“Just because you’re not in the country, doesn’t mean you are not of the country,” he complained. “I follow British politics and it irritates me that I can’t vote, not in elections and not in the referendum.”

Harry Shindler, a 95-year-old World War II veteran, is spearheading a campaign to change the law passed by the British parliament in 2000 which denied voting rights to citizens who have lived overseas for more than 15 years.

A Conservative lawmaker helped block a proposal last November in the upper house of the British parliament to let expats vote in the referendum.

“There are two million of us out here in Europe, that is more than any city in England, other than London. It’s like suggesting the whole of the Midlands shouldn’t vote,” grumbled Shindler.

“For us expats to be denied the vote is in my view not only undemocratic, it is beyond belief,” he said from his home on Italy’s east coast. “How can anyone organize a vote and then suggest that those people most concerned are not able to vote?”

Blame politics.

The Labour government of then Prime Minister Tony Blair pushed through the voting ban, ostensibly because it deemed long-term emigrants to have severed ties with the old country.

Privately, Labour politicians admit the party’s assumption that most expats vote Conservative may just have played a role.

Smell a rat

Under pressure from campaigners like Shindler, David Cameron’s Conservative government promises a ‘votes-for-life’ bill to overturn the 15-year-rule before the next general election — but not in time to let overseas Brits vote on Brexit.

“The parliamentary process of the bill is completely controlled by Euroskeptics in the parliamentary Conservative Party,” said Roger Casale, CEO of New Europeans, an advocacy group that champions migrant voting rights.

“The Euroskeptics thought that if they give the vote now to British expats, they’ll vote to stay in and so it was quietly dropped,” Casale said by phone from London.

Lord Archibald Hamilton, a Conservative lawmaker, helped block a proposal last November in the upper house of the British parliament to let expats vote in the referendum, suggesting it was a plot by Britain’s pro-EU lobby.

“My Lords, why do I smell another rat here? It seems to me that this is once again trying to slew the whole playing field … in favor of those who want to keep us in the EU,” he told the House of Lords.

If Cameron had hoped younger voters and expats could help secure a ‘yes’ vote, time is not on his side.

Former British soldier Harry Shindler in Rome | EPA

“Extending the franchise to 16- and 17-year-olds, as well as allowing those who have lived abroad for more than 15 years to vote, would not only have required legislative approval but would also have taken time to implement,” said John Curtice, professor of politics at Strathclyde University. “At best it might have been possible to introduce these changes in time for the electoral register that will be due to come into force on 1 December 2016 — but Mr Cameron is in too much of a hurry for that.”

Britain is not alone in crimping emigrant voting rights. A European Parliament report last year pointed to restrictions in five other EU countries — Germany, Ireland, Denmark, Cyprus and Malta.

The policy is viewed with bemusement in countries like France, Italy and Portugal, which not only encourage their millions of emigrants to vote, but actually set seats aside in parliament to represent them.

Southern Europeans tend to regard emigrants as tragic compatriots forced by economic woes to abandon their beloved homelands to toil in chill northern climes, or as brave pioneers seeking new opportunities abroad. They value their diaspora as a source of valuable remittances, knowhow and global influence.

Brits view far-flung compatriots differently.

“They have a picture in their minds that you are all swanning around on a yacht in the Mediterranean, while we’re sitting here in the cold and the rain,” said Casale, a former Labour Party member of parliament. “There’s a resentment against those who move.”

That attitude, he said, means Britain is squandering opportunities offered by its global expat network.

“Brits around the world represent a huge asset for Britain. We are missing out enormously by not representing them and not reaching out to them,” Casale argued. “In a globalized world, these sorts of networks are a national treasure, but Britain doesn’t see it that way.”

Neglect by the motherland, he says, means that even when they are eligible to vote, few expats bother to register on the electoral rolls.

Many are unaware of their rights, don’t know how to register, or are deterred by complex postal or proxy voting procedures that Britain imposes on overseas voters, in contrast with other countries which allow emigrants to cast ballots online, or in embassies and consulates.

Tit for tat

In a referendum battle that is expected to be tight, expat votes could have a big impact, given that the 5.5 million Brits who live abroad make up almost 10 percent of the U.K. population.

There are no official figures of the disenfranchised, but at least a million are believed to have been away for more than 15 years.

Although British Euroskeptics rail against inward migration from other EU countries, their compatriots actually rival Romanians, Germans, Poles and Italians among the bloc’s most enthusiastic cross-border settlers.

The 2.2 million British emigrants scattered around the Union compare to an estimated 2.6 million EU expats living in Britain.

Some expats wonder if they have to make contingency plans to return home.

In Spain alone, there are over a million Brits, according to a 2010 report for the British Foreign Office, making it second only to Australia as the preferred destination. France and Ireland each had 330,000, Germany 107,000 and little Cyprus 65,000.

Many are worried about their residency rights should Britain vote to leave. There are fears over additional red tape, limitations to running businesses, access to education, healthcare or welfare benefits.

Some expats wonder if they have to make contingency plans to return home. Others are applying for a new nationality.

“My economic interests, everything that I have in terms of my personal investment is all here in Portugal,” said Smith, the winemaker. “I’m concerned if the U.K. leaves. What does that mean for me? Do I have to take out Portuguese citizenship?”

Euroskeptics have sought to allay such concerns. They insist other European countries will rush to negotiate residency deals that protect the valuable contribution British expats make to local economies.

Their welcome could be strained, however, if post-Brexit Britain restricts immigration from EU countries — as many Euroskeptics demand.

Jean-Claude Piris, for 23 years chief legal expert at the EU Council of Ministers, warns Brits abroad to expect a backlash if Britain moves to stem immigration from Europe.

“British citizens and companies in other member-states would lose rights derived from EU law,” Piris wrote last week for the Center for European Research, a think tank. “If, as is likely, a post-Brexit government made it harder for EU citizens to live, work or study in the U.K., Britons wishing to remain in or move to the Continent would face similar problems.”

‘We’re British’

Veteran campaigner Shindler is determined he and fellow expats must win the right to vote against such a fate.

“The matter isn’t finished yet, not by any means, because we’re going to continue this fight, right up to the end, to get our right to vote, and at the end of the day, we will win this,” he growled in a south London accent that’s survived more than three decades in Italy.

One longtime Brussels resident suggests expats chain themselves to embassy railings, repeating the tactics of votes-for-women activists in the early 20th-Century.

Shindler has been struggling for 15 years to get his vote back, including through an appeal rejected by the European Court of Human Rights in 2013. He’s energetically lobbying legislators and planning legal action to block the referendum unless expats are included.

There is a petition demanding parliament resume debate of the issue. One longtime Brussels resident suggests expats chain themselves to embassy railings, repeating the tactics of votes-for-women activists in the early 20th-Century.

“We can’t just stand by. There’s too much at stake for two million of us out here,” says Shindler.

With less than four months until the referendum, some campaigners fear there’s little hope of success. Shindler, however, is a difficult man for politicians to ignore.

As a young solider in 1944, he got his first taste of Italy storming ashore in the Battle of Anzio. He helped liberate Rome and was with British troops that battled their way through the notorious Gothic line of Nazi defenses, not far from his current home on the Adriatic coast.

In 2014, Shindler was honored by Queen Elizabeth II for promoting Anglo-Italian relations, working for the expat community and preserving the memory of old comrades who fell liberating Italy from Fascism.

“It is in fact ironic, that we fought here to get the vote for people in Europe who were denied the vote because they had dictators here,” Shindler says. “Having done that and having won the war, they then say to us, ‘well you can’t vote of course’. It really isn’t on. I mean we’re British citizens.”

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Andrej

Yes, they should definitely be allowed to vote as they are the most concerned by the results of the BREXIT referendum. and probably they also have a better vision of the EU and Europe in general, and see unifying factors more than divisions.

Posted on 3/3/16 | 10:07 AM CET

Diaphanous Schisms

No, they most certainly should not be allowed to vote. The Scottish citizens who lived in England; just south of Scottish border, weren’t allowed to vote in the recent Scottish referendum despite the fact that they’re paying the same tax and National Insurance as everyone in Scotland.

Voting rules must be consistent, it’s not a pick and choose situation, as we see so often in the EU>

Posted on 3/3/16 | 12:20 PM CET

Dacia Felix

The Brexit enthusiasts in UK are very deluded if they think the EU would negotiate after Brexit. On the French TV a heard a French politician saying that the UK should get out, the rest of the EU countries had enough of their bullying and blackmail. Britain is perceived as a country who want the EU advantages but none of the obligations.
When Switzerland tried, via referendum, to restrict, the freedom of EU citizens to work in Switzerland, the EU withdrew all funding on projects in Switzerland. Now the Swiss are trying to reverse the result of the referendum. All the British politicians who think the EU will negotiate live in cuckoo land.

Posted on 3/3/16 | 1:06 PM CET

Scaremongering is Boring

@Dacia

You mightn’t be aware of it, but, we’ve heard these threats before, just before we rejected membership to the eurozone. To be entirely fair, even if this is the intention of EU nations, I very much doubt that the threats will come to anything given the increasing likelihood that the EU will collapse due to its own disunity.

Posted on 3/3/16 | 2:38 PM CET

Dacia Felix

@Scaremongering is Boring
Do you have any evidence that the EU countries will negotiate? NO!. Has the UK any realistic plans on what will do after the Brexit if the EU won’t negotiate? NO! Any disaster mitigation plans? NO!
Not to mention that maybe Scotland, N Ireland and Wales would want to remain part of the EU. In that case, farewell United Kingdom, welcome isolated England! It is not scaremongering, just a possible scenario. Any disaster mitigation plans for this situation? NO!
Britain deserves her fate if she thinks that post Brexit will be all singing and dancing.

All of these ex-pats knew or should have known the 15-year voting rule when they left the country. If they didn’t want to be prevented from voting in the UK, then they should have paid more attention to retaining their UK residency. It’s a little pathetic that they would all start squealing about the “anti-democratic” nature of the UK’s voting system, when so many of them want their countrymen to be bound forever within the prison of the decidedly anti-democratic EU.

Posted on 3/3/16 | 5:37 PM CET

Scaremongering is Boring

@Dacia

Well, yes actually, it’s called common sense.

That’s an interesting point of view from you, but it’s somewhat suggestive of a lack of understanding of politics within the UK. Perhaps those French television herds you mentioned earlier aren’t giving you all the facts, you know, like most opinion oriented media that comments on foreign countries.

Just for the record, I am Scottish and in Scotland (and I voted for independance) so I am quite well placed to tell you that what the SNP (which I’m a member of) is spouting about independance isn’t, anecodatally at least, the typical view that I’ve found on the street. The SNP has yet to poll it’s members to actually ask them what their opinion is, in fact. The only polling that’s taken place so far has used very small polling sizes.

Also, it might be of benefit to do some background reading on Northern Ireland as the assertion that NI, Wales (who are becoming increasingly Brexit supportive) and Scotland will go skipping to the EU is very unlikely.

Let me ask you a question, from a place of genuine interest. If you are French(i’m assuming, of course) then why do you care? It’s our decision, not yours. Is it that you feel affronted that a country would dare to reject the EU? I’m genuinely interested.

Posted on 3/3/16 | 5:57 PM CET

Dacia Felix

@Scaremongering is Boring

I am British so I am as much concerned about Brexit as you are. Unlike you, I speak five European language so I am more aware of the anti-British feelings of the continent and the refusal to negotiate.
My concern is that the entire political class is in denial of the Brexit difficulties. There are no emergency plans, no alternative solutions if things don’t go as expected, no post Brexit plans. I worked in Switzerland and had first hand experience of how much the Swiss have to accept in terms of EU legislation to trade with the EU. I have no illusions that the UK would be in a better position to negotiate with the EU.
People behind the Iron Curtain believed that once Communism would be over, life would be a never ending bliss. They had no plans for what they would do once Communism is over, just the blind faith that life would be better in a post Communist society. More than 25 years later these countries are still poor, the end of communism has not improved peoples lives, quite the contrary.

Britain now lives under the same delusion: getting out of the EU would bring instant prosperity and freedom. UK will be again the land of milk and honey. Everybody will live happily ever after etc, etc,

The absence of planning the after-Brexit will bring chaos, losses and poverty. Is these post-Brexit plans exist, show me where to find them! If not, you should be also concerned.

Posted on 3/4/16 | 1:57 PM CET

Marcel

@Dacia
So are these same Frenchies offering to cover for the loss of Britains net contribution?

I bet they aren’t.

And have you, in your failed fortress Europe ever heard that there is an entire world out there? Your failed EU is a drain on economies and robs Spanish and Greek pensioners to save Franco-German banker bonuses. Save the wealth destroying Euro at any cost with Draghi propping up the value of assets held by the rich with the stated goal of hurting the middle class and poor with inflation.

And lets not forget the demented Merkel thinking she has the right to overrule other countries governments.

Better off out. My country Netherlands too. Would be great if we could get rid of some eastern Europeans here undercutting locals and working for cheaper, driving wages down.

Posted on 3/7/16 | 12:00 PM CET

Dacia Felix

@Marcel,

Do you understand what I wrote? I wrote clearly that I am a British citizen who can speak fluent French, not a Frenchie or something else.
In long term, getting rid of Eastern Europeans would not compensate for the loss of unfettered access to their markets. Are seriously thinking that Romanians and Poles, so much demonized in the UK, would be happy to give access to their markets to UK plc ? Dream on, mate! They are poor, not stupid.

Posted on 3/7/16 | 2:39 PM CET

J

Germans can vote Americians can vote French can too. Im not allowed to vote in the UK OR in germany!

I WANT MY VOTE back I hope the supreme court rules for ex pats . Im seriously thinking of getting a german passport even though i am British will always be British and ( i used to be) proud of being British!